Whatever Happened to Predictability?

Posted by Jamie November 27th, 2007 at 02:36pm In Vintage

My bad. The last item in yesterday’s news briefs should’ve been researched with a little more scrutiny: “Our Very First Telethon” — Full House episode 3.24 — is actually readily available on YouTube. As a hellish mea culpa, I’ve decided to review the episode in real time. I have now leared my lesson. Trust me, this won’t happen again.

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• 00:03 — “Telethion”? Oh dear. This is not starting out so well.
• 00:08 — Tee-hee. I was just imaging what a TV-MA episode of Full House would be like. Lots of cussing and full-frontal Bob Saget.
• 00:22 — That’s some righteous hair, John Stamos. The early inspiration for Amy Winehouse, no doubt.
• 00:29 — I’ve always wondered what Dave Coulier is gesturing about here. Seriously. I like to pretend he’s in the midst of a heated commentary on Great Britain’s naval eminence following the Battle of Trafalgar.
• 00:33 — JODIE SWEETIN IS LOOKING AT ME. Weird: How come she’s the only cast member of the cast to directly break the fourth wall on their opening-credits introduction? (Lori Loughlin might also be guilty; the video quality is too poor to see in what direction those eyes are pointed.)
• 01:00 — Hey, Roseanne! Full House is stealing your harmonica licks!
• 01:03 — Oh my God. I hate clowns.
• 01:40 — Seriously? They have Michelle answering phones at the telethion? This show’s credibility just got tossed out the window.
• 01:58 — “If you need me, I’m ready to ride!” Too easy.
• 02:08 — A little-known Jerry Fallwell stab at comedy.
• 02:37 — What kinda badass guitar pose was that, Stamos?
• 02:49 — Is it just me, or did anyone else think for a split-second that somebody just dressed Mama’s Family‘s Iola Lucille Boyland in a tux and pushed her out on stage?
• 02:52 — I feel like somebody stole these floral arrangements from a funeral home.
• 03:24 — I thought Jodie Sweetin didn’t start doing the meth until many years later.
• 03:48 — What the hell is on his sweater? Are those sneakers? Spores? Paramecium? I kinda want it.
• 03:56 — My new hero(ine): the lady on the far right in the second row. “Let’s hear it for this band, huh? Ladies and gentlemen?” She is having none of it. She’s not even happy to be there.
• 04:11 — OH MY GOD! THAT IS SO FUNNY! THAT IS SO TRUE!
• 04:29 — THAT IS SO TRUE! THAT IS SO FUNNY! OH MY GOD!
• 04:30 — I dig the severe ’90s-ish-ness of the gal in the center of the front row. I also dig how the lady to the right of her looks ready to evacuate the moment any big shit goes down.
• 04:38 — And this is the dude Alanis wrote “You Oughta Know” about? Sad.
• 04:49 — Gosh, I’m tired.
• 05:00 — I know it’s the perspective, but the legs of the woman painted on the Cabinet of Mystery look weird.
• 05:10 — I like to provide my own comic screamy noises when she tosses her shoes off-stage.
• 05:12 — Ditto.
• 06:52 — Whoa. Sorry. Fell asleep there.
• 07:10 — The goal of this telethion is to, like, raise $1,000,000, right? Which would mean they want people to tune in, yes? So why on earth are they letting Danny Tanner sing “Kiss Today Goodbye”?
• 07:41 — GAH! When that leg came up, I totally thought Danny was gonna hump the Cabinet of Mystery.
• 07:56 — Fun fact: A lot of people don’t know this, but this moment is actually a clever industry inside joke — Dave Coulier was Jennifer Beals’ wedling double in Flashdance.
• 08:12 — Sigh.
• 08:28 — Oh, I’m making a big-ass vegan taco salad for dinner tomorrow if anyone wants to come over.
• 08:42 — God, I wish I wasn’t a teetotaler.
• 08:56 — They’re totally dueting on a fierce cover of Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer,” you know.
• 08:57 — If Jack had lived and moved to San Francisco with Ennis …
• 09:07 — This is the Lakers Girls’ dance interpretation of race relations in Los Angeles two years before the riots. Not many people give Full House credit for being so aware of cultural zeitgeist.
• 09:10 — At least “coming” was misspelled in the most innocent way possible.

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• 00:03 — Previously on Full House …
• 00:07 — I like how only some of them are doing jazz hands.
• 00:11 — Gross. The old ladies in the second row look just as into their hotpants-fueled frenzy of sexual arousal as the frat boys in front of them.
• 00:50 — “We’ve only got … four hours, in fact, to hit that sack.” In fact, I wish I could hit your sack for four hours, Bob Saget. And I don’t mean that in a friendly way.
• 01:00 — “Hi, daddy.” Cue the laugh track. Seriously, they will use push-button bemusement to underscore just about any line reading on this show.
• 01:46 — Where are they now: Uncle Jesse’s bandmates. I say the one in the front is probably a guitar tech for Steely Dan, and the one in the back just celebrated the third anniversary of his civil union to his life-partner Reginald.
• 01:53 — “Itsy-Witsy Spider”? So the spider is tiny and has the biting levity of Oscar Wilde? Please kill me.
• 02:14 — HEY! THAT’S NOT HOW THE FINAL VERSE GOES! BOO!
• 02:32 — In case you missed the first time …
• 02:42 — Stamos had no idea how to end that, did he?
• 03:10 — I like how they keep referring to it as the “We Love Our Children Telethon ’90.” Like it would return in ’91.
• 03:43 — Was Danny drinking NyQuil
• 03:56 — Is this Olsen twin wearing a roll of wrapping paper?
• 04:24 — I like Candace Cameron’s mane. She looks like Vincent from TV’s Beauty and the Beast.
• 04:44 — Oh shit. Here we go!
• 04:50 — TOO MUCH BOOTY IN DA PANTS!
• 04:54 — Her euphoria makes me giggle.
• 05:08 — Easiest-to-please audience ever.
• 05:14 — I kinda want all the finger puppets glued to Stephanie’s sweater to leap off, inexplicably grow at least six times their size, and dance alongside her.
• 05:21 — Hey. WAIT! This isn’t the B-52s!
• 05:24 — Did she just almost bust out the Macarena, like, five years before it was popular?
• 05:33 — $862,200 (and counting!) for a telethion that showcases bad stand-up comedy, a magic trick everybody knows the gimmick to, six sluts and their TV-G bump-and-grind, “The Itsy-Witsy Spider,” and Stephanie Tanner being a mini-Fly Girl? Yeah, I am so sure.
• 05:41 — So she’s Ashlee Simpson now?
• 05:48 — Are these the Milennium Countown Singers? I’ve always wondered what they sounded like.
• 05:52 — HAHAHA. That was one thankfully abrupt ending.
• 06:04 — What’s with these spastic arm movements? It’s totally meth.
• 06:14 — Uh …
• 06:25 — It’d be so much funnier if she just yanked out a lollipop and a dimebag.
• 06:32 — You know what would really enliven this performance? A few of those power-ballad high kicks that Ann and Nancy Wilson were so good at.
• 06:41 — I need to pay my BGE bill tomorrow.
• 06:51 — “Lollipops & Gummi Bears.” I’m gonna put it on a mix CD alongside Kylie Minogue’s “Chocolate,” Kelis’ “Milkshake,” and Mandy Moore’s “Candy.” I’ll call it Diabetic Jamz ’07.
• 06:55 — I think Mia Michaels choreographed this.
• 07:08 — Danny Tanner, I feel your pain.
• 07:26 — SIKE! FAKE ENDING! CHORUS REDUX!
• 07:37 — I made it. I’d thank God, but it’s fully apparent He doesn’t exist …
• 07:47 — Or maybe He does exist, seeing as how the cut to black comes mercifully before Joey starts singing.

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• 00:01 — Nevermind. He totally doesn’t exist.
• 00:06 — What the hell? Is he doing De Niro as Stephen Tyler in Rock in a Hard Place: The Aerosmith Story?
• 00:23 — Is she wearing a bathrobe?
• 00:38 — Oh, I get it. It’s surrealism! And I always wondered why Luis Bunuel said his favorite Full House episode was the one with the telethion.
• 00:59 — Buck up, Jamie. Three-and-a-half minutes to go!
• 01:26 — $960,000, eh? Must be a lot of drunk rich people in San Francisco.
• 01:44 — I’m not entirely convinced that’s really Mike Love. It looks and sounds more like David Carradine as Terrence Stamp playing Mike Love.
• 01:51 — Did Mike just say, “I heard Bridget baking for help?”
• 02:02 — “Well, I’d love to sing ‘Be True to Your Skull’ if we could get those sugar gliders out here”? I think he’s back on the pills, folks.
• 02:14 — Whoa. Mike Love is a method actor! Who knew?
• 02:29 — I’ll say this of Full House: It’s nice of the producers to nab a legitimate musical talent for the show. You know, a year after D.J. cut school to meet Stacey Q. And two years before Tommy Page crashed Stephanie’s birthday party.
• 02:48 — 02:14 just paid off.
• 03:06 — The leg is on the amp! Stamos, you rock god!
• 03:09 — I think I can I think I can I think I can …
• 03:21 — Crap. My funny is broken.
• 03:25 — “We’re almost at the end of the show”? Huzzah!
• 03:29 — $1,004,800! Way to go, We Love Our Children Telethon ’90! So, uh, what does this benefit anyway? The loving of children? That’s kinda vague. Not to mention creepy.
• 03:39 — Wow, festoonery, balloons, forward flips and everything?! I love this telethion!
• 03:47 — D.J. looks like the wife of a Texan oil tycoon.
• 03:56 — Why do I get the feeling that Mike Love’s hair is attached to his ballcap?
• 04:05 — My hero(ine) from Part I is now applauding, but she hasn’t lost that steely grip on her patrician facade. She’s thinking, “Whatever. I thought this was a taping of Murphy Brown.”
• 04:20 — I made it. Huzzah!
• 04:25 — YOUR WELCOMME.